“Wise Women” — the daily strengthening from The Rav, the holy Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a — “Pharaoh decreed against the daughters; you are decreeing against the sons as well. Say The Tikkun HaKlali and the decree will be annulled.”

Sunday, 17 Tammuz 5785 — “It’s impossible to understand Moshe’s speech; only Miriam understood.” These are his holy words:

Now we learned about Miriam the Prophetess—that she was not afraid of her father.

From the time she was a little girl, five and a half years old, she wasn’t afraid of her father (Amram), who was the Tzaddik of the generation, through whom all the Torah passed.

Amram was younger than Yocheved by a month or a year. Yocheved was 130 years old, so he was 129.

She wasn’t afraid of her father. She told him, “You should know—you are worse than Pharaoh. You’re my father, yes, but you’re worse than Pharaoh.”

What did Pharaoh do, after all? He said, “I’ll throw the children into the Nile—but not the girls!” He kept the girls alive; he left them, because he wanted the Egyptians to marry them. To them it doesn’t matter—anyone can take four, five wives; fifty children becomes five hundred grandchildren, five thousand great-grandchildren.

Miriam said to him, “What is this? How can you throw everyone into the Nile? You’re worse than Pharaoh! Pharaoh throws in the sons—you’re throwing in the daughters too!”

So what is it—are daughters more important than sons? Everything comes through the daughters. A woman gives birth, and the baby is with her for nine months; and afterward, the baby receives everything from the mother.

She told her father: with one The Tikkun HaKlali you can annul all the decrees. Usually the woman is right—she is more responsible. It’s her baby; she brought him into the world.

She told him to take Mother back to Father. And what happens? She is in seclusion; it’s forbidden to see her at all. And suddenly she sees that all of Basya’s maidens are dying—one after another, they all died there.

And now Basya goes down to the Nile. She was covered in tzara’as—covered in sores, covered in boils, covered in itching. She goes down to the Nile; she only immerses, she touches the ark—and all her tzara’as disappears, all the sores disappear.

She understood there was a righteous child here, a child who is holy of holies. She brings him to Pharaoh. Pharaoh sees that he is circumcised—“What? This is a Jewish child! Why did you bring him to me? Why didn’t you strangle him?!”

She tells him, “No, he’s an Ishmaelite child. We’ve already been in Egypt 320 years; after Yitzchak’s birth, Yishmael was born 14 years earlier. The Ishmaelites already circumcise themselves—two billion Ishmaelites circumcise. Half the world circumcises itself—two billion Ishmaelites. What do you want, Father? I didn’t do anything against you, Heaven forbid!”

And then Moshe takes off his crown. He plays with him, hugs him; Pharaoh began to love him, and he plays with him, sits him on his lap. Moshe removes his crown, and the astrologers said, “We’re finished—this is already not a good sign.”

They decided to place two bowls—one with gold coins and the other with coals. He reached out his hand toward the gold coins; then Gavriel came and turned his hand toward the coals. Moshe actually took a burning coal in his hand and put it into his mouth to cool it, and then he became heavy of mouth.

Because the Tzaddik is “heavy of mouth”—it’s impossible to understand the Tzaddik at all. Except for Miriam. Rebbe Nachman says it’s impossible to understand the Tzaddik, because the explanations of Torah—the “well,” meaning the Torah’s explanations—come only through Miriam. Because only Miriam can understand Moshe. No one can truly understand the Tzaddik except the woman—only she can.

And therefore the wife of On ben Pelet—she understood. “Wise women build their house, but folly tears it down with its own hands” (Mishlei 14:1).

“Wise women”—this is the wife of On ben Pelet. She told him, “Why are you getting involved with Moshe? Have you lost your mind? Have you gone crazy?” She said, “Drink a bottle of wine.” She brought him a bottle of vodka and gave him to drink, and he fell asleep for 24 hours. He woke up—and everyone had already been swallowed into the earth.

But Korach’s wife was wicked—because everything depends on the woman. If the woman is wicked, the husband is wicked; if the woman is righteous, the husband is righteous. It depends on what kind of wife a person is given.